ABBA On The Web - September 2001
This issue's featured website is ABBA ANNUAL. It's created and maintained by Trijnie Dijkema from The Netherlands, and has been on the Internet now for just over one year.
ABBA ANNUAL is a detailed calender of ABBA happenings from 1970 to 1982. Everything's included, from recording sessions and TV appearances to marriages, divorces and other newsworthy events. It's another one of my favourite ABBA sites, and one that's definitely worth adding to any ABBA fan's bookmarks.
Each year is listed on a separate page. Sprinkled among the diary-style entries are photographs, often against the entry for the day that they were taken. Many of the photographs are pretty rare and haven't been seen too often, which makes a nice change on the net! Also included are detailed pages for each of ABBA's albums, with relevant dates such as recording sessions or album cover photo sessions where known.
Trijnie has compiled the information from a variety of sources she's collected over the years from books and magazines, most notably (but not exclusively) 'ABBA - The Complete Recording Sessions' and 'ABBA: The Book', as well as information from other fans. Trijnie says "I've tried to be as accurate as possible. I admit that there still are many errors to be corrected, but I guess that's the fun of it."
Trijnie tells me that even today she's still searching at second hand shops and fleamarkets for more ABBA stuff to add to her collection and to her site. So if any readers out there have more information to contribute, contact Trijnie - you'll find her e-mail address on the site.
Another interesting feature of ABBA ANNUAL is full details of ABBA's single and album chart successes in Trijnie's home country. It's always interesting to see how records fared in different countries, and seeing how they were packaged - some singles in The Netherlands had unique covers not seen in other countries.
There's also an archive of selected classic ABBA articles from various newspapers and magazines from the 70s, 80s and 90s - mostly in English, though some are in Dutch. The articles are linked both from the mainpage and from the various pages for the relevant years.
ABBA ANNUAL is an easy site to navigate, with a toolbar across the bottom of the screen with links accessing the major areas. The mainpage explains the features in detail, as well as giving updates on what's new or changed on the site. It's rather attractive too, with a starry night background, easy to read text and well-placed graphics. A handy song index will also take you directly to the year a particular song was recorded.
So if you're wondering what ABBA may have been doing on a given day, go to ABBA ANNUAL to find out!
